This invention is directed to education in general and, more specifically, to using multimedia tools to motivate and educate individuals.
Increasing numbers of students are losing their motivation to learn and their academic interest due to the inability of conventional educational methods to inspire and motivate individuals. This decrease in motivation and interest is demonstrated by increasing: inattentiveness, truancy, disruptive classroom behavior, dropout rates, low standardized and regular test scores.
The importance of conforming to peer pressures further exacerbates the above problems and causes one student's disruptive behavior to be replicated by students who would otherwise desire to learn. The continuing problems have resulted in a reexamination of the strategies used by educational institutions.
Several educational companies base their educational initiatives on conventional multiple choice educational computer software. However, such programs rarely capture student attention. Consequently, many of the students enrolled in these initiatives perform even worse than prior to entering the educational initiative.
In today's media intensive environment, many forces are constantly competing for the attention of students. One of the largest distractions is the entertainment industry which often portrays becoming an entertainer as a glamorous and lucrative career to pursue. Some music producers have observed that three fourths of their clients were of school age and had dropped out of school to pursue entertainment related careers. This only demonstrates a small amount of the effect that the entertainment industry has on school age children.
The entertainment industry focuses it's marketing to youths ages eight to nineteen of which about ninety eight percent are enrolled in school. In many economically distressed areas, children find a “safe haven” from their unpleasant surroundings in music and entertainment. This can lead to music and entertainment becoming the majority focus in their lives. As such, it is no surprise that rapidly growing numbers of school-age youths “drop out” each year to pursue entertainment careers. This premature termination of their education results in the majority of these children never obtaining a productive place in society. Even worse, a significant number end up being exploited financially and/or sexually by unscrupulous talent agents, producers, business managers, company executives, and con artists.
This problem is not unique to any one area of the country. The Philadelphia public schools appear to be steadily loosing the battle for the hearts and minds of its students. This is best demonstrated by the establishment of nearly three dozen charter schools over the past four years despite a decline in the Philadelphia population.
What is needed is a new exciting educational method that can use students interest in entertainment to further their educations; that uses multi-media software to interest students; and that can increase the connectivity between students and neighborhood schools.